Emergency (1975-77): India
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In brief
India Today, December 29, 2008
Gunjeet K. Sra
The Emergency, June 1975-March 1977: It effectively bestowed on Indira Gandhi the power to rule by decree, suspending elections as well as civil liberties, such as the right to free press.
Highlights
The Times of India, Jun 21 2015
Patrick Clibbens
Emergency wasn't just about Sanjay and his playground
Forty years, on the night of June 25, 1975, President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared that India was in a state of `grave emergency'. Although the government had declared emergencies twice before (indeed the 1971 emergency was still in place), they had been in times of war.
In 1975, the government was targeting events within India itself -the `internal disturbance' that it claimed threatened the security of India.
The government's crackdown transformed Indian political life. Yet for many people today , the Emergency is best remembered for its twin social programmes of urban clearances and mass sterilizations.The government pursued them on a massive scale. Almost 11,000,000 people were sterilized in just two years, while 700,000 had their homes or businesses demolished in Delhi alone.
When describing the Emergency , historians have relied on one document more than any other: the three-volume Shah Commission report published in 1978. Justice J C Shah oversaw a fact-finding team which gathered thousands of documents and testimonies. For years the report was hard to trace, with copies languishing in a few uni versity libraries, but since its republication by Era Sezhiyan this crucial document is readily available in India. It is the source of much of our knowledge about the Emergency , but its own blind spots and unspoken assumptions are the origin of many common misconceptions today .
When the Shah Commission was appointed in May 1977, the new Janata government instructed it to inquire into the `excesses' committed during the Emergency -this terminology implied that the Emergency consisted of good policies pursued with too much zeal.The report also assumes a `drastic change after the Emergency', and the idea that it was a short-term aberration was built into the Commission's inquiries. More extensive historical research shows that, at least for the highly emotive social programmes, we must qualify this view.
In the Emergency family planning programme, New Delhi set targets cascading from the central departments out through states to the most junior local officials. The programme created tissues of targets, incentives and disincentives disproportionately directed at the poor and those reliant on government jobs, housing or welfare. All these features predated the Emergency . For example, since 1959 the State of Madras (now Tamil Nadu) had given `canvassers' a cash payment for each man they brought to be sterilized, though they knew the canvassers often misled patients. Mahar ashtra had used a package of `disincentives' to pressure people since 1967, while Kerala had pio neered `massive vasectomy camps' which sterilized thousands at a time in the early 1970s.
Another feature of the Shah Commission's re port which has often figured in discussions of the Emergency is its focus on a few personalities, par ticularly Indira Gandhi's younger son, Sanjay .
Justice Shah naturally wanted to pin down those responsible for the abuses he had documented and it is clear that Sanjay liked to issue instructions to ministers despite having no government position of any kind. Yet identifying Emergency policies so closely with one man means we risk losing sight of other actors.
In particular, regarding Sanjay as the `evil genius' of the whole demolition programme has focused all the attention on Delhi and its environs, as this was Sanjay's playground. Justice Shah dedicated 63 pages to demolitions in Delhi, but covered the rest of the country in 10 pages without providing any statistics. Some large states were neglected entirely . More recently , the influential account by Indira Gandhi's secretary P N Dhar also states that demolitions took place in Delhi, Haryana and western UP `in order to please Sanjay Gandhi'. UP `in order to please Sanjay Gandhi'.
Yet if we take just one example -Mumbai -we can see that this focus is misleading. During the Emergency , the city finally succeeded in demolishing the dwellings of over 70,000 people from the Janata Colony and transported them to the deso late, marshy land at the tip of Trombay . Beggars were also a target: thousands were rounded up and transported to a holding camp in a cattle shed and then to `work camps' 160km inland, where they were also sterilized.
In this anniversary year, we will no doubt hear more about the high politics and drama of the Emergency . Yet there is so much we still don't know about the many different ways in which people across India experienced the Emergency in their everyday lives. The Shah Commission has served us well, but it's time to get researching.
Emergency: The Dark Age of Indian democracy
The Hindu, June 27, 2015
From June 25, 1975 to March 21, 1977 were 21 months of uncertainty and fear triggered by the imposition of internal Emergency by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. On the occasion of this period's 40th anniversary, here is a look at the mood in the country as democracy went under.
What
The Emergency was set in motion by the Indira Gandhi government on June 25, 1975 and was in place for 21 months till its withdrawal on March 21, 1977. The order gave Ms. Gandhi the authority to rule by decree wherein civil liberties were curbed. An external Emergency was already in place even before the imposition of the internal one.
How
The Emergency was officially issued by the then President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed. With the suspension of the Fundamental rights, politicians who opposed Ms. Gandhi were arrested. Threat to national security and bad economic conditions were cited as reasons for the declaration. In Tamil Nadu, the Karunanidhi government was dissolved. The DMK leader’s son M.K. Stalin was arrested amidst protests under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act.
Chennai’s newspapers go blank
Writer Gnani, who was the working as a reporter in a newspaper in Chennai, recalls how the city reacted. “Among the politically aware, there was confusion as to what will happen... “The Censor wanted to kill newspapers by delaying approvals. Along with letting pages go blank, sometimes innocuous stuff like how to make onion raitha (salad) would be printed since political news could not be taken,” he says.
Calcutta’s prophets of doom
“I was in Calcutta for my Rajya Sabha election, scheduled for 26 June,” writes President Pranab Mukherjee in his book The Dramatic Decade: The Indira Years. “I got to the assembly building at about 9.30 a.m. It was teeming with state legislators, ministers and political leaders, some with questions and others with conspiracy theories. Some went to the extent of suggesting that, a la Mujibur Rahman of Bangladesh, Indira Gandhi had abrogated the Constitution and usurped power for herself, with the army in tow. I corrected these prophets of doom, saying that the Emergency had been declared according to the provisions of the Constitution rather than in spite of it.”
Gun shots in Delhi
There was nothing wild or exaggerated, however, about what the bush telegraph said concerning the police firing at Delhi's Turkman Gate where slums were demolished and those living in them "relocated". Soon thereafter, gunfire was heard also at Muzaffarnagar, a town in Uttar Pradesh, 100 km away from the national capital. Above all, forced vasectomies, in pursuance of one of the five points in Sanjay's personal agenda, were to spread both fear and revulsion across North India.
Arrests in Bangalore
Several senior BJP leaders now, including the former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani and socialist leaders such as Shyam Nandan Mishra and Madhu Dandavate, were arrested in Bangalore on June 26... With so many leading figures in the same jail, Bangalore became an important point in the movement to oppose Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
Unlearnt lessons of the Emergency - Subramanian Swamy
When attempts at seeking homogeneity of Indian society are carried beyond a point, it is dangerous for democracy... Those of us who can stand up, must do so now.
Mastering the drill of democracy - Gopalkrishna Gandhi
The Emergency is a distant memory today because the nation’s collective spine did not bend, the media stayed unbent and the judiciary remained independent.
"An avoidable event"
Pranab Mukherjee, December 12, 2014
The 1975 Emergency was perhaps an “avoidable event” and Congress and Indira Gandhi had to pay a heavy price for this “misadventure” as suspension of fundamental rights and political activity, large scale arrests and press censorship adversely affected people, says President Pranab Mukherjee.
A junior minister under Gandhi in those turbulent times, Mukherjee however, is also unsparing of the opposition then under the leadership of the late Jayaprakash Narayan, JP , whose movement appeared to him to be “directionless”. The President has penned his thoughts about the tumultuous period in India's post-independence history in his book “The Dramatic Decade: the Indira Gandhi Years” that has just been released.
He discloses that Indira Gandhi was not aware of the Constitutional provisions allowing for declaration of Emergency that was imposed in 1975 and it was Siddartha Shankar Ray who led her into the decision.
Ironically, it was Ray, then Chief Minister of West Bengal, who also took a sharp aboutturn on the authorship of the Emergency before the Shah Commission that went into `excesses' during that period and disowned that decision, according to Mukherjee.
Mukherjee, who celebrated his 79th birthday on Thursday, says,“The Dramatic Decade is the first of a trilogy; this book covers the period between 1969 and 1980...I intent to deal with the period between 1980 and 1998 in volume II, and the period between 1998 and 2012, which marked the end of my active political career, in volume III.“
“At this point in the book, it will be sufficient to say here that many of us who were part of the Union Cabinet at that time (I was a junior minister) did not then understand its deep and far reaching impact.“
Mukherjee's 321-page book covers various chapters including the liberation of Bangladesh, JP's offensive, the defeat in the 1977 elections, split in Congress and return to power in 1980 and after.
Why Indira Gandhi imposed the Emergency
Adrija Roychowdhury , June 25, 2018: The Indian Express
“The President has proclaimed Emergency. There is nothing to panic about.” The words of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi blared from the All India Radio in the wee hours of June 26. The nation, on the receiving end of this piece of news, was as unsuspecting of it as were Gandhi’s Cabinet ministers who had been informed just hours before the PM proceeded to the AIR studio. The proclamation of Emergency had been signed by President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed the previous night itself. Soon after, newspaper presses across Delhi sank into darkness as a power cut ensured that nothing could be printed for the next two days. In the early hours of June 26, on the other hand, hundreds of political leaders, activists, and trade unionists opposed to the Congress Party were imprisoned.
The goal of the 21-month-long Emergency in the country was to control “internal disturbance”, for which the constitutional rights were suspended and freedom of speech and the press withdrawn. Indira Gandhi justified the drastic measure in terms of national interest, primarily based on three grounds. First, she said India’s security and democracy was in danger owing to the movement launched by Jayaprakash Narayan. Second, she was of the opinion that there was a need for rapid economic development and upliftment of the underprivileged. Third, she warned against the intervention of powers from abroad which could destabilise and weaken India.
The months preceding the declaration of the Emergency were fraught with economic troubles — growing unemployment, rampant inflation and scarcity of food. The dismal condition of the Indian economy was accompanied by widespread riots and protests in several parts of the country. Interestingly, the hitherto simmering borders of the country were rather quiet in the years preceding the Emergency. “As if to compensate, there was now trouble in the heartland, in parts of the country which, for reasons of history, politics, tradition, and language, had long considered themselves integral parts of the Republic of India,” writes historian Ramachandra Guha in his book, ‘India after Gandhi.’ The trouble began in Gujarat, spread to Bihar and from there to several other parts of Northern India. While the streets were raging against Gandhi’s governance, another challenge came to the doorstep of the prime minister in the form of a petition filed in the Allahabad High Court.
Here are the four major occurrences of the 1970s following which Indira Gandhi declared the Emergency.
Navnirman Andolan in Gujarat
In December 1973, students of L D College of Engineering in Ahmedabad went on a strike to protest against a hike in school fees. A month later, students of Gujarat University erupted in protest, demanding the dismissal of the state government. It called itself the ‘Navnirman movement’ or the movement for regeneration. Gujarat at this point in time was governed by the Congress under chief minister Chimanbhai Patel. The government was notorious for its corruption, and its head popularly referred to as chiman chor (thief).
The student protests against the government escalated and soon factory workers and people from other sectors of society joined in. Clashes with the police, burning of buses and government office and attacks on ration shops became an everyday occurrence. By February 1974, the central government was forced to act upon the protest. It suspended the Assembly and imposed President’s rule upon the state. “The last act of the Gujarat drama was played in March 1975 when, faced with continuing agitation and fast unto death by Morarji Desai, Indira Gandhi dissolved the assembly and announced fresh elections to it in June,” writes historian Bipin Chandra in his book, ‘India since Independence.’
The JP movement
Following in the footsteps of Gujarat or rather inspired by its success, a similar movement was launched in Bihar. A student protest erupted in Bihar in March 1974 to which opposition forces lent their strength. First, it was soon headed by 71-year-old freedom fighter Jayaprakash Narayan, popularly called JP. Second, in the case of Bihar, Indira Gandhi did not concede to the suspension of the Assembly. However, the JP movement was significant in determining her to declare Emergency.
A hero of the freedom struggle, JP had been known for his selfless activism since the days of the nationalist movement. “His entry gave the struggle a great boost, and also changed its name; what was till then the ‘Bihar movement’ now became the ‘JP movement’,” writes Guha. He motivated students to boycott classes and work towards raising the collective consciousness of the society. There were a large number of clashes with the police, courts, and offices, schools and colleges were being shut down.
In June 1974, JP led a large procession through the streets of Patna which culminated in a call for ‘total revolution’. He urged the dissenters to put pressure on the existing legislators to resign, so as to be able to pull down the Congress government. Further, JP toured across large sections of North India, drawing students, traders and sections of the intelligentsia towards his movement. Opposition parties who were crushed in 1971, saw in JP a popular leader best suited to stand up against Gandhi. JP too realised the necessity of the organisational capacity of these parties in order to be able to face Gandhi effectively. Gandhi denounced the JP movement as being extra-parliamentary and challenged him to face her in the general elections of March 1976. While JP accepted the challenge and formed the National Coordination Committee for the purpose, Gandhi soon imposed the Emergency.
The railways’ protest
Even as Bihar was burning in agitations, the country was paralysed by a railways strike led by socialist leader George Fernandes. Lasting for three weeks, in May 1974, the strike resulted in the halt of the movement of goods and people. Guha, in his book, notes that as many as a million railwaymen participated in the movement. “There were militant demonstrations in many towns and cities- in several places, the army was called out to maintain the peace,” he writes. Gandhi’s government came down heavily on the protesters. Thousands of employees were arrested and their families were driven out of their quarters.
The Raj Narain verdict
While opposition parties, trade unions, students and parts of the intelligentsia had occupied the streets in protest against Indira Gandhi’s government, a new threat emerged before her in the form of a petition filed in the Allahabad High Court by socialist leader Raj Narain who had lost out to Gandhi in Raebareli parliamentary elections of 1971. The petition accused the prime minister of having won the elections through corrupt practices. It alleged that she spent more money than was allowed and further that her campaign was carried out by government officials.
On March 19, 1975, Gandhi became the first Indian prime minister to testify in court. On June 12, 1975, Justice Sinha read out the judgment in the Allahabad High Court declaring Gandhi’s election to Parliament as null and void, but she was given a span of 20 days to appeal to the Supreme Court.
On June 24, the Supreme Court put a conditional stay on the High Court order: Gandhi could attend Parliament, but would not be allowed to vote unless the court pronounced on her appeal. The judgments gave the impetus to the JP movement, convincing them of their demand for the resignation of the prime minister. Further, by now even senior members of the Congress party were of the opinion that her resignation would be favourable to the party. However, Gandhi firmly held on to the prime ministerial position with the conviction that she alone could lead the country in the state that it was in.
A day after the Supreme Court judgment, an ordinance was drafted declaring a state of internal emergency and the President signed on it immediately. In her letter to the President requesting the declaration of Emergency, Gandhi wrote, “Information has reached us that indicate imminent danger to the security of India.” In an interview with journalist Jonathan Dimbleby in 1978, when Gandhi was asked the precise nature of the danger to Indian security that drove her to declare a state of emergency, she promptly replied, “it was obvious, isn’t it? The whole subcontinent had been destabilised.”
Sequence
1975: Indira wanted to tax farm income
From the archives of The Times of India
April 10, 2013
Indira Gandhi was willing to go where politicians today fear to tread. Back in 1975, she wanted to tax agriculture income and the rural rich. It remains a no-go area for policymakers even today.
Addressing the Institute for Social and Economic Change in Bangalore, which was reported by the US mission in India, revealed by WikiLeaks, she reportedly asked the states “to overcome the compulsions that have stopped them from taxing agriculture income and the rural wealthy. She particularly deplored subsidies on water and power used for irrigation. She warned the states they would not receive any overdrafts if they overspent.”
While these might sound free-market thinking, Gandhi took a different stance by saying `the "income tax department is being asked to intensify its efforts to bring self-employed professionals and traders within the tax net,’ without indicating how this was to be done.” She also warned industrial borrowers that they were being watched closely, justifying the credit squeeze on the private sector.
A timeline
Adrija Roychowdhury, June 25, 2023: The Indian Express
“The President has proclaimed the Emergency. This is nothing to panic about. I am sure you are all aware of the deep and widespread conspiracy, which has been brewing ever since I began to introduce certain progressive measures of benefit for the common man and woman in India.”
With the announcement of these words on the All India Radio, prime minister Indira Gandhi declared the historic moment of Emergency in 1975. Analysed in retrospect to be one of the darkest period of post-independent Indian history, the two-year-long period of Emergency was also perhaps the most momentous episode in the political evolution of the Indian National Congress.
Referred to as ‘the matriarch’ by historian Ramachandra Guha, Indira Gandhi had an uncomfortable relationship with democracy, a fact that is evident from several documented conversations of hers. Guha reproduced in his book, “India after Gandhi” a dialogue between Gandhi and her friend in 1963 wherein she said that “democracy not only throws up the mediocre person but gives strength to the most vocal howsoever they may lack knowledge and understanding.”
Gandhi’s rise to the role of Congress president and then to the position of prime minister was accompanied by every effort on her part to gain absolute control over the government and her party. Her authoritarian stance was aided by her charismatic appeal, particularly among the middle class and the economically downtrodden who considered her to be the one who could rescue them from their economic problems. The Emergency, for Gandhi was her strongest attempt to shut out every democratic voice and tighten her authoritarian grip.
Announced soon after the Raj Narain verdict, wherein the Supreme Court barred Gandhi from voting, the Emergency was one of the harshest clamp down on her political opponents and the media. The politico-economic situation including the recently concluded war with Pakistan, the 1973 oil crisis and the drought in the country, did everything to creating conditions perfect for Gandhi’s proclamation. Steeped in the urgent need for economic development, the Emergency allowed Gandhi to carry out mass arrests of ministers and have complete control over what the media published. It also resulted in her son, Sanjay Gandhi carrying out forced sterilisation drives in Delhi and slum clearance programs. Consequently, it was also the time of large scale protests against the dictatorial methods of the government. Foremost among them were the demonstrations organised by Jayaprakash Narayanan. Media outlets including The Indian Express and The Statesmen protested against the undemocratic conditions in the country. By the end of the two years, Gandhi had been at the receiving end of huge amount of criticism, both from her country’s people and from world leaders. Finally, in March 1977, India was freed from the clutches of Emergency.
Here is a timeline of important events in the Emergency of 1975:
January 1966: Indira Gandhi elected prime minister.
November 1969: The Congress splits after Gandhi is expelled for violating party discipline.
1973-75: Surge in political unrest and demonstrations against the Indira Gandhi-led government.
1971: Political opponent Raj Narain lodges complaint of electoral fraud against Indira Gandhi.
June 12, 1975: Allahabad High Court found Gandhi guilty over discrepancies in the electoral campaign.
June 24, 1975: Supreme Court rules that MP privileges to no longer apply to Gandhi. She is barred from voting. However, she is allowed to continue as Prime Minister.
June 25, 1975: Declaration of Emergency by president Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed on the advice of Indira Gandhi.
June 26, 1975: Indira Gandhi addresses the nation on All India Radio.
September 1976: Sanjay Gandhi initiates mass forced sterilisation program in Delhi.
January 18, 1977: Indira Gandhi calls for fresh elections and releases all political prisoners.
March 23, 1977: Emergency officially comes to an end.
This article was first published on June 26, 2017.
1976: Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed resented Indira
From the archives of The Times of India
April 10, 2013
Fakruddin Ali Ahmed, the rubber stamp President during the Emergency era, may not have been a complete rubber stamp after all. According to a US embassy cable sent on August 6, 1976, the mission said, “We have heard much more reliably (than rumours) that Fakruddin is seriously concerned over the govt’s family planning moves.” The cable said the rumours have been about “some disaffection between the Prime Minister and President Fakruddin Ali Ahmed. The stories vary but have as their central core that Fakruddin is concerned that the PM and her son are pushing too hard on the political and constitutional system of India.”
Impact
Fundamental rights
The Times of India, Jun 25 2015
Manoj Mitta
Darkest phase of India's history - when SC failed to uphold fundamental rights
It was 40 years ago that Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, bypassing her own Cabinet, asked President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed to sign the Emergency proclamation. He did so promptly , late on June 25, 1975, without in the least serving as a check on executive overreach. The circumstances were fraught as Indira had just received an interim reprieve from the Supreme Court to carry on in office despite being convicted in an election case by the Allahabad high court. All that her “top secret“ letter to Ahmed offered by way of justification for seeking such unprecedented action was some information suggesting that “there is an imminent danger to the security of India being threatened by internal disturbance“. But this claim of hers has since been nailed by the disclosure of the official file under RTI. This file does not contain a shred of material backing such threat perception on that fateful day .
On the contrary , it reveals that the first assessment of an alleged threat of internal disturbance was made more than a fortnight later in the form of a report on the situation before and after June 25 from the IB submitted on July 11. Thus, India's hard-fought democracy was suspended on the say-so of one individual, without a modicum of institutional safeguards.
The dubious origins of the Emergency set the tone for a range of draconian measures that were taken over the next 21 months by not just government functionaries but also extra constitutional authority Sanjay Gandhi. With almost the entire Opposition in jail, Parliament could do little to stop the executive from committing excesses. This is how the notorious 42nd Amendment was passed in Parliament, claiming unfettered authority to change the Constitution in the teeth of the basic structure doctrine propounded by the Supreme Court.
The apex court showed little courage to enforce accountability or uphold fundamental rights when it came to the crunch. In fact, it earned an opprobrium it could never shake off for its judgment in the habeas corpus case. While uphold ing detention orders from across the country , the apex court ruled in ef fect that even the fundamental right to life and personal liberty stood suspended during Emergency . Out of the five judges who dealt with that notorious case, the only one who dissented, Justice H R Khanna, was immediately superseded from being appointed as Chief Justice of India.
Those who were not in jail had to cope with an oppressive regime, reminiscent of the worst of colonial times. The various freedoms en shrined in Article 19 freedom of speech and expression, freedom to assemble peaceably , freedom to form associations or unions were a major casualty . The crackdown on dissent was such that the government even introduced censorship of the press. That dark phase of India's history bears many lessons in governance, accountability and the rule of law, lessons that are as relevant today as they were then.
Forced sterilisations
The Times of India, Jun 21 2015
Avijit Ghosh in Uttawar, Haryana
A tale of two villages that saw the ugliest face of the Emergency
The Emergency meant different things to different people. For editors it was a daily battle with censorship. For politicians, barring Congressmen and some Leftists, it was time to go underground or to jail. For cops it meant absolute authority , thanks to the dreaded ordinance, MISA (Maintainence of Internal Security Act).
But for Uttawar village, 60 km south of Delhi, the Emergency will always be about one unnerving morn ing in the bitter winter of 1976 when hundreds from the Muslim-dominated village were packed into buses and taken to police stations, where they were thrashed, jailed and forcibly sterilized.
If the 1975 Emergency was a black mark on India's democratic register, forcible sterilization was its ugliest public face. And two Haryana villages, Uttawar and Pipli, lived its horror.The drive stemmed from the wisdom that parivar niyojan or family planning was imperative to prevent population explosion. But the implementation had communal undertones too.
Now part of rejigged Haryana's Palwal district, Uttawar is in Mewat region largely inhabited by Meo Muslims. Many are marginal farmers or daily wagers.
Uttawar had substantial Congress voters but the Emergency turned them against the No. 1 national party .In the 1977 Lok Sabha polls, the entire village voted for Janata Party.
September 1976
Sep 5, 2021: The Times of India
1.7 mn sterilised in September 1976
Among the excesses of the Emergency era from 1975 to 1977 under Indira Gandhi was the policy of forced sterilisations, of which Sanjay Gandhi was a major proponent. Fear of overpopulation made ‘family planning’ a key policy plank, with Sanjay Gandhi claiming in interviews that his policies would solve “50% of our problems”. Though sterilisation camps were active around the country since the early 1970s, the policy was escalated in 1976 — first, the government offered financial incentives to those voluntarily opting for sterilisation, particularly if they already had at least two children. But in September 1976, there were reports of forced sterilisations, especially in rural regions, followed by several protests in Delhi and UP. In September 1976 alone, 1.7 million people were reportedly sterilised. In one incident, local officials targeted Muslims in Muzaffarnagar, near Delhi, which led to a riot and at least 50 deaths. Between 1976 and 1977, 4.3 million people were sterilised, exceeding the government target by 190%. Under the Fifth Five-Year plan, from 1974-1979, more than 18 million people were reportedly sterilised. After the Emergency was lifted in January 1977 and an election was called, Congress was handed its first general election loss. Indira Gandhi would go on to defend her son, saying he was not to blame for the excesses of Emergency.
Source: TOI Archives, media reports
Expressing dissent discreetly
The Times of India, Jun 26 2015
When a smartly worded obit exposed death of democracy
“O'Cracy, D.E.M., beloved husband of T. Ruth, loving father of L.I. Bertie, brother of Faith, Hope and Justicia, expired on June 26.”
It was a small obit, only 22 words long, which came out among the classified ads in the Times of India on June 28, 1975, three days after the Emergency was declared.
Seemingly innocuous at first glance, the words escape censure from the clerk at the TOI office in Bombay . But when carefully read, they turned out to be a sly expression of dissent against the imposition of the Emergency .
Forty years ago, journalist Ashok Mahadevan, only 26 years old then, used subterfuge and smarts to register his protest against censorship typifying those dark days of democracy in post-independent India. Mahadevan, who used to work for Reader's Digest then, had come across a brief news item of similar nature in the popular magazine. The filler, originally published in a Sri Lankan newspaper, ran into several paragraphs. Not surprising when you consider that the first half of the 1970s was marred by violent internal strife leading to an Emergency-like situation for several years.
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Opposition
Young opponents of the Emergency
The Times of India, Jun 21 2015
Arati R Jerath
In those heady days of agitations, a whole new crop of leaders emerged. Today, they're key figures on the political landscape
Indira Gandhi's Emergency was a water shed moment for Indian politics and poli ticians. The unprecedented suspension of democracy heralded the demise of the Congress system that had dominated and Congress system that had dominated and shaped India in the years immediately following Independence. As space opened up for nonCongress alternatives, it spawned a whole new crop of leaders who not only redefined Indian politics but continue to hold sway even today , 40 years after that dark day when the state imposed its will on an unsuspecting polity . Ironically , many of them, particularly those who emerged from Jayaprakash Narayan's student movement, are accidental politicians. The current finance minister and BJP leader Arun Jaitley and the Bihar chief minister and JD (U) leader Nitish Kumar for instance, candidly admit that they may never have joined full-time politics had they not been sucked into the heady JP movement. Kumar was a student leader in Patna University . “I never thought I'd become a full-fledged politician then,“ he says. “I was inspired by JP and joined his movement.“ And when Emergency came, Kumar, like thousands of other student activists, went underground, only to be ferreted out and jailed.
His time in prison strengthened his interest in politics. An avowed socialist, Kumar recalls that he and other incarcerated leaders held classes for the uninitiated in the jail, enlarging their pool of supporters. “It was easy for us, he laughs. “Most of the youth in prison were drawn to our socialist ideology. RJD chief and former Bihar chief minister Lalu Yadav is another prominent leader who cut his political teeth on the Emergency . Also a student activist during his days in Patna University , he had given up politics to join a veterinary college as a clerk. And then the JP movement called. He enrolled himself in a law college to become a student again so that he could be a part of the heady agitation that engulfed campuses across the country . He became president of the Patna University Students Union which formed the Bihar Chhatra Sangharsh Samiti to spearhead JP's fight against rising prices, corruption and the Indira regime.
Like most mass movements, students were the backbone of the JP movement. Protests and street agitations honed their political skills. The crackdown during Emergency only strengthened their resolve and shaped them into the leading figures they would become in the years that followed. The contemporary political landscape is dotted with activists from that time: Venkaiah Naidu, Rajnath Singh and Ravi Shankar Prasad are ministers in the Modi government today while those who came from the socialist stream like Mulayam Singh Yadav rule the roost in UP and Bihar.
Former Delhi University professor of political science Neera Chandhoke points out that the JP movement was a broad-based platform for all types of disgruntled elements drawn from different political ideologies. “JP tapped into a moment of deep discon tent, much like Narendra Modi and Arvind Kejriwal. Unfortunately , he failed to provide an alternative to the Congress system,“ Chandhoke says. Internal contradictions ultimately led to the disintegration of the Janata Party .But that moment in history paved the way for the Mandal versus Mandir politics that has dominated the Indian arena since the 1980s.
Students apart, Emergency proved a boon to political leaders like Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Charan Singh and trade union leaders like George Fernandes who perhaps would have been confined to the sidelines, overshadowed by a pre-eminent Congress with its galaxy of leaders from the freedom struggle. Vajpayee rose to become the first BJP prime minister and the first non-Congress PM to complete a full term in office. Another stalwart from that era is former Union minister and JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav. He was one of JP's blue-eyed boys, chosen to contest a bye-election from Jabalpur in 1974 using the farmer-in-a-wheel symbol on an experimental basis. He won from what had been a Congress stronghold and the symbol became the Janata Party's winning card against Indira Gandhi in 1977.
He says the differentiator between the Emergency generation of political leaders and today's Gen Next politicians is political commitment. “We grew up at a time of strong ideologies. We believed in nation building, civil liberties and democracy . Now we have the post-liberalization generation of politicians who are ideology-neutral. Sadly , politics has become a money-making profession today , he says.
Kishore’s voice was muzzled
The ministry, headed by Indira Gandhi’s aide V C Shukla, wanted Bollywood to help promote on All India Radio and Doordarshan the 20-point programme Indira had declared after imposing Emergency and had called top filmmakers to see how their ‘co-operation’ could be obtained. Kishore Kumar, whose popular voice the regime sought to support its actions, wasn’t budging.
CB Jain, then I&B joint secretary, telephoned him, told him what the government wanted and suggested they meet at the singer’s residence. He refused, according to the report of the Shah Commission later set up to probe Emergency excesses, saying he was unwell, had heart trouble, and was advised by his doctor not to meet anyone. He told Jain he didn’t want to sing for radio or TV “in any case.”
Offended, Jain told his boss, I&B secretary SMH Burney, the singer was “curt” and “blunt” and called his refusal to meet “grossly discourteous,” the Shah panel noted. Burney, with minister Shukla’s sanction, then passed an order banning all Kishore Kumar songs AIR and Doordarshan, listing films he was acting in for “further action,” and freezing sales of his gramophone records.
The inquiry panel said the I&B secretary’s subsequent noting that the action had a “tangible effect on film producers” showed it was meant not only to “teach Kishore Kumar a lesson” but to coerce others into submission. The commission called it “a clear case of vindictiveness… against a film artiste of renown.” The muzzling worked at a time the government had curtailed freedoms and imprisoned its opponents.
On July 14, 1976, the panel recorded, Kishore Kumar wrote a letter to the ministry saying he was willing to co-operate. In view of this “undertaking,” Jain wrote, “we may lift the ban.” But they wouldn’t just let the singer be. “Watch the degree of co-operation that he extends,” Jain mentioned in the note.
Summoned by the inquiry commission, Shukla said he took full responsibility for the “regrettable episode” and said “no officer should be blamed,” TOI reported on October 29, 1977. But retired SC chief justice J C Shah found it “shocking” that “a person should be treated in this manner for not falling in line.”
The matter ended, as the Janata Party government that set up the commission collapsed; Kishore Kumar’s voice, though, managed to stand the test of time.
M Karunanidhi, CM, TN: a reluctant opponent?
June 23, 2023: The Times of India
In Tamil Nadu, chief minister MK Stalin once remarked that the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) rule is “authoritarian” and “worse than the Emergency”. So, what happened in Tamil Nadu during the Emergency?
In Tamil Nadu, Congress (O) leader K Kamaraj had fretted that the nation was lost. He died a broken man on October 2, 1975. All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) leader MG Ramachandran and the Communist Party of India welcomed the Emergency, narrowing the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s (DMK’s) options. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) opposed the Emergency.
Pushed to a corner, the ruling DMK chose to oppose the measure. Political satirist Cho Ramaswamy described DMK president and then chief minister M Karunanidhi as “a reluctant opponent” who later “put on the mantle of a great fighter against the Emergency”.
Yet, Karunanidhi failed to stave off his government’s dismissal on January 31, 1976, and the subsequent jailing of hundreds of DMK men, including his son Stalin and nephew, the late Murasoli Maran.
On June 26, 1975, and well through to the next morning, Karunanidhi was closeted with DMK general secretary Era Nedunchezhian and treasurer K Anbazhagan on what ought to be the party’s response. The party executive took up the Karunanidhi-crafted resolution, which described the Emergency as the “inauguration of dictatorship”.
Despite fears expressed by a section of the executive that opposition would lead to the government’s dismissal, the resolution was adopted unanimously by 63 of the 75 members present.
Party mouthpiece Murasoli carried the headline “Indira Gandhi becomes a dictator” with a cartoon depicting her transformation into the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.
There was no going back now. In 1994, Karunanidhi claimed that a central minister (most likely C Subramaniam) came home to advise him to retract the resolution and, in return, promised his government’s extension. Karunanidhi said he chose not to bend. But the relationship with the Congress (I) was beyond mend, and the Emergency was just the last straw.
A calculated move
Karunanidhi had taken care to see that the opposition was not from his administration — hence the resolution had emanated from the DMK executive. But these nuances were lost on Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who was under a siege mentality.
On October 30, 1975, when AIADMK’s P Srinivasan wondered in the legislative assembly why he had not moved an official resolution, Karunanidhi famously replied, “A warrior would know which hand should hold the sword and which the shield.” The speech issued as a booklet titled Sword and Shield was banned the following year.
On July 1, 1975, the prime minister announced the 20-point programme to rein in prices and alleviate rural indebtedness. Karunanidhi welcomed it, hoping for further “progressive measures” including nationalising major industries. However, three days later, Maran told the US consul general in Chennai that the DMK was prepared for the long haul, that Indira was wooing Kamaraj, for with him beside her, she would feel emboldened to strike at the DMK. On the other hand, if the DMK and Kamaraj were to join forces, she “will not be able to control the situation in TN”. That day, Kamaraj fretted to Karunanidhi and Nedunchezhian that he felt the “country is lost”.
Two days later, the DMK’s top three addressed a gathering at the Marina in Chennai where Karunanidhi clarified that the rally’s purpose was to “safeguard democracy” and not to criticise Indira.
However, Karunanidhi’s speech was laced with biting sarcasm. Pointing out that the “great change” of 1969 (when banks were nationalised and privy purses abolished) would have gone astray if not for the DMK, he said: “VV Giri was elected President! Indira madam could continue in office” because of the DMK. “What would have happened to India” if the DMK had chosen to hold back then, he posed rhetorically. “The DMK is accused of treason. We gave ₹6 crore for the 1971 war fund. Is that treason?”
Karunanidhi said that the DMK government had launched and implemented 15 points of the 20-point programme years ago. He noted that 30,000 houses for Adi Dravidas and plans for 5,000 houses for fishermen were underway and that the 20-point programme fell short compared to the DMK’s vision.
A year later, in August 1976, he would claim that his party had felt “heartfelt love” for the 20-point programme and “no one could match the DMK to propagate it”.
Protecting democracy
In the end, Karunanidhi administered a solemn pledge in DMK founder CN Annadurai’s name to those assembled at the Marina “to protect Indian democracy under any circumstances and in any eventuality”.
Only six weeks later, Karunanidhi would extend an olive branch to Indira when on August 9, 1975, at the party’s fifth
Tirunelveli district conference, Anbazhagan proposed and Nedunchezhian seconded a resolution calling on Karunanidhi to undertake efforts to “change the extraordinary situation” by engaging chief ministers and meeting the prime minister. On September 13, the US consul general noted the ambivalence and how the “DMK has been walking both sides of the street”. “Karunanidhi termed the Emergency ‘good’ last month. His recent trip to New Delhi, although still somewhat shrouded in mystery, represents further erosion of his early [in the Emergency] stand against the prime minister’s actions,” noted the consul general.
On December 15, 1976, on Karunanidhi’s invite, leaders of the Opposition from the Congress (O), Bharatiya Lok Dal, Jan Sangh, Praja Socialist Party, Revolutionary Socialist Party and Akali Dal met at DMK member of Parliament (MP) Nedunchezhian’s residence in New Delhi. Ashok Mehta, AB Vajpayee and Biju Patnaik were present. Karunanidhi later recorded that “no one can deny that this was the first and foremost reason for the birth of the Janata Party”.
In his welcome address, Karunanidhi said that a way must be found to normalise the situation in the country. On some placing conditions regarding talks to lift the Emergency, Karunanidhi sagely said conditionalities from either side would be unhelpful.
The next day, leaders continued meeting at Swatantra Party leader HM Patel’s house, where a communique indicating their readiness for talks with the government was finalised.
Karunanidhi forwarded it with a letter to Indira. It is unclear whether she responded to this letter. However, events cascaded fast, and Indira felt confident enough to announce elections and release the arrested leaders.
Through a critical lense
“ The Dramatic Decade: The Indira Years”: Pranab Mukherjee
Harish Khare
January 9, 2015
The partisan in Pranab Mukherjee omits crucial details about the Emergency but the politician in him offers a blue book on recouping political fortunes after a defeat.
The Dramatic Decade
The Indira Gandhi Years by Pranab Mukherjee, he has given us a fascinating history of a turbulent period in the journey of our young nation-state. Apart from two possible exceptions- L.K. Advani and Sharad Pawar-no other active political leader is well equipped as Mukherjee is to throw light on a period that saw the rise, fall and rise, again, of Indira Gandhi.
Mukherjee had been a Mr Minister for almost four decades before he became Mr President. He is a natural when it comes to exercising power and authority in the interests of the nation. Now he has given us a peep into his thoughts and calculations as he became Indira's partisan. It makes for an absorbing read.
There are, however, two glaring-and disappointing-omissions. Mukherjee has made Sanjay Gandhi, the catalyst for the political turbulence, an almost non-person; Indira's younger son's role-before, during and after the Emergency-is referred to only in passing, almost as if he were a minor figure, rather than one of the prime movers, if not the prime mover. This is at variance with all other historical accounts; it would have been useful if Mukherjee had tried to explain whether or not Sanjay's culpability was overstated by the Congress's rivals. Instead, there is a hint or two to suggest that Mukherjee was not uncomfortable with Sanjay's presence and role. There is even admiration at the spunk and spirit that Sanjay displayed in standing up to the Janata Party bullies: "It also became clear that his boys would never leave him and, in times to come, Sanjay Gandhi's boys became the cornerstone of our new movement."
A related glaring omission is the virtual absence of any discussion of the "excesses" of Emergency, which Mukherjee calls a "misadventure". For instance, he mentions that "during the Emergency, a large number of judges had been transferred to other High Courts, so much so that in one instance sixteen judges had been transferred on a single day". Yet there is no suggestion as to who had instigated it. It would have been useful to have his reflections on why these "excesses" took place. He, though, makes a loaded observation: "Interestingly, though not surprisingly, once it was declared, there was a whole host of people claiming authorship of the idea of declaring of Emergency. And, again, not surprisingly, these very people took a sharp about-turn when the Shah Commission was set up to look into the Emergency 'excesses'." Mukherjee is indeed drawing attention to a quintessential Indian democratic conundrum, which we have not yet fully confronted. There is a great yearning for a strong, vigorous executive political authority-yet without its inherent potential for over-zeal and abuse. Perhaps this has something to do with our collective gift for duplicity. Though rhetorically the country has come to abhor the Sanjay Gandhi phenomenon, it remains tantalisingly fascinated with Sanjay Gandhi-like political options.
In the context of the JP movement, Mukherjee draws attention to another democratic dilemma: "which democracy in the world would permit a change of popularly and freely elected government through means other than a popular election? Can parties beaten at the hustings replace a popularly elected government by sheer agitations?" These questions remain valid. We were confronted with a similar painful choice when the Anna Hazare platform was used to make peremptory claims in the name of the Janata.
Mukherjee's book serves another purpose. It makes us think about a slogan of which we have become very fond-the curative potency of "willpower". A student of political economy is left dissatisfied because Mukherjee does not explain why it was not possible for Indira's government-with all the requisite accruements of "willpower", a strong leader, political clarity, a decisive parliamentary majority, a cabinet full of first-class talent-to get on top of the 1973-75 economic crisis.
He does quote C. Subramaniam's 1975-76 budget speech to own up that "we have been ill-equipped to withstand" the impact of virulent global economic forces. These were pre-globalisation days. Since then national economies have become much more interdependent, though we persist in believing that a "strong leader" can solve intractable economic problems by sheer political will.
Mukherjee has alluded to some of these significant political propositions that keep on impinging upon the polity. However, the most enjoyable chunks of the book deal with the turmoil in the Congress. Throughout, Mukherjee remains an Indira loyalist, partisan and admirer.
He gives us a flavour of the 1969 split-how the polity, operated as it mostly was by the Congress bosses, had become dysfunctional and how it was Indira's historic task to initiate a series of moves that would help the "system" break out of the politically created logjam. This also created scope for institutional stand-off. The higher judiciary was not inclined to see the need for change, leave alone see any institutional role for itself in the management of that change. The result was, as Mukherjee puts it, a "strained relationship" between the executive and the judiciary-a subdued confrontation that was to later cost Indira dearly.
Mukherjee has done well to reproduce a letter Indira wrote-a few days after Pakistan's surrender at Dacca-to the chief justice of India. In a masterly formulation, she asks the chief justice to appreciate the need to look beyond the comforting stability of status quo: "... As our nation moves forward and our society gains inner cohesion and sense of direction all our great institutions, Parliament, Judiciary and Executive, will reflect the organic unity of our society.
Legal stability depends as much upon the power to look forward for necessary adjustment and adaptation as to look backward for certainty." And then she makes a telling point: "... Needs and grievances of the people in a democracy cannot be met by repression of their manifestation but by remedying the causes which underline them." Indira was riding high; the judiciary waited for her political fortunes to suffer a decline before settling a score or two with her.
When, after the 1977 defeat, the time came to choose sides, Mukherjee had no doubt or hesitation; he stood by Indira: "everybody knew of my affiliation, and I did not give them reason to believe otherwise till the day she died." No ambiguity there. And when the factional lines got redrawn, Mukherjee enjoyed the role of a factionalist: "I was then working with A.P. Sharma, C.M. Stephen, R. Gundu Rao and Vasant Sathe, and we took an active role against (D.) Barooah. We usually moved in a group and took direction from Kamalapati Tripathi and Indira Gandhi herself." As an Indira loyalist, he knew his tactics. He writes: "I knew there was no way out except to resort to a show of strength." And, again, a few pages later: "(A.R.) Antulay and I were all for the split. We were sure that the Congress could not be revived without a split." Mukherjee's account offers many clues and suggestions on how to recoup political fortunes after an electoral defeat. It is almost a blue book on how to create or take over a political party.
RK Dhawan’s revelations
24 Jun, 2015, TNN
“Sonia had no qualms about Emergency, Maneka knew of Sanjay's acts” : says Indira's aide RK Dhawan
NEW DELHI: Indira Gandhi's private secretary RK Dhawan, part of the sanctum sanctorum of the former PM's office and residence, has spilled the beans on the Emergency claiming that Rajiv and Sonia "didn't have reservations about it while "Maneka knew everything Sanjay was doing and was with him at all times and cannot claim innocence or ignorance." Dhawan’s revelations during an interview to a news channel will surely embarrass the two daughters-in-law of the Gandhi-Nehru dynasty, especially Menaka Gandhi who is now with the BJP many of whose leaders went to jail for defying the Emergency. He also said that Indira Gandhi was unaware of the excesses of Emergency like forced sterilizations and the Turkman Gate demolitions and held Sanjay Gandhi solely responsible.
Dhawan said Indira was also unaware of land being acquired by Sanjay for his Maruti project. Dhawan said it is he who organised it for Sanjay, adding that there was nothing wrong in it.
Dhawan said West Bengal chief minister SS Ray gave Indira Gandhi the idea of imposing Emergency as early as January 1975 and can be called its “architect.” He also said Emergency was being planned for a long time. Dhawan said Emergency was not called to protect Indira Gandhi's political career after the Allahabad high court struck down her election and the Supreme Court only gave her a conditional stay. In fact, he says, she had dictated her resignation but it could not be signed. Sonia Gandhi had no reservations about Emergency, according to RK Dhawan who was Indira Gandhi's private secretary.
According to him, in the preceding three or four years events were building up that necessitated a response like the Emergency. He pointed to the railway strike, LN Mishra's killing, attempts by the opposition to paralyze government culminating in Jayaprakash Narayan's call to the army and police not to obey illegal orders as reasons for imposition.
Giving a blow by blow account about the events of June 25, 1976, Dhawan said the news channel that only one cabinet minister, Swaran Singh, had questions about imposing Emergency while the entire Cabinet was in its favour. The meeting lasted only 15 minutes. The Cabinet led by Jagjivan Ram called on Indira after her election was struck down insisting she must not resign, Dhawan said. "As a result the resignation letter was not signed," he said.
Dhawan said he was present when Indira and Ray called on the President to say they wanted him to declare an Emergency and the President readily agreed. "The President asked Ray to draft the proclamation and he did so," Dhawan said. Before midnight, Dhawan took the proclamation to Rashtrapati Bhavan for the President's signature. Dhawan also revealed details of how plans to arrest people had been prepared from 20th or 21st June. Chief ministers were called and informed to be ready to make arrests. He said similar preparations were made in Delhi.
Maneka Gandhi knew everything about Sanjay's actions, Indira Gandhi's private secretary R K Dhawan has claimed. Dhawan also said that Indira Gandhi called the 1977 election after being told by the IB that she would win up to 340 seats. PN Dhar, her principal secretary, gave her this report which she believed. Dhawan denied the theory that the elections were called because her conscience had begun to trouble her and this was her way of getting off the Emergency tiger's back
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh supported the Emergency: former IB chief
The Times of India, September 22, 2015
Rajeswar also claimed that Indira Gandhi's decision to impose the Emergency in 1975 “was not made in consul tation with the IB or the home ministry“. He said the IB was completely taken by surprise and found out about imposition of the Emergency from the radio. Rajeswar reveals that BalasahebDeoras, then sarsanghchalak of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, “quietly established a link with the PM's house and expressed strong support for several steps taken to enforce order and discipline in the country .“ He told the channel, “Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh supported the Emergency . They were not opponents. They not only supported but they wanted to establish contact with Mrs Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi.“ However, Mrs Gandhi refused because, according to Rajeswar, she didn't want to seen as being close to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
Post-emergency
AICC meet post Emergency
From the archives of The Times of India
April 12, 2013
New Delhi: The first AICC session after imposition of Emergency was an ‘Indira Gandhi’ exercise, with then Congress president, D K Barooah (of India-is-Indira fame), comparing her to emperor Ashoka and Mahatma Gandhi rolled into one.
The US embassy in India, reporting on the event (as revealed by Wikileaks), said the Chandigarh session “underscored Mrs Gandhi's overriding political position and enhanced authoritarianism in India. There was no dissent. For the first time, no amendments were even considered to the resolutions that were drawn up by the CWC drafting committee of which the Prime Minister was a member.” Under heavy security, all the speakers sang paeans to Gandhi and all were her loyalists. Everybody rationalized the Emergency. “Mrs Gandhi in several emotional speeches charged that external and internal conspiracies aimed at undermining India's unity were still at work.” In other cables describing the political situation, US diplomats observed that there was apparent calm though press censorship suppressed all news or protests. Another cable said the average Indian citizen seemed unaware or unconcerned about the Emergency. Yet another cable described how Mrs Gandhi was able to craft her foreign policy more “evenly” in the absence of political opposition. The Chandigarh AICC session was also the one where Sanjay Gandhi’s star was on the ascendant, while the meet reaffirmed postponement of elections; continuation of the emergency and the inevitability of constitutional changes. The “foreign hand” theory was in full play, with long anti-CIA tirades by the members. The Embassy observed, “It was clear she was referring to the US, Pakistan, China and the rich nations” of the world as sponsors of these “external dangers”. Internal “dangers” were the foreign press, the DMK government in Tamil Nadu, the Janata front government in Gujarat, etc. “No other speaker surpassed her forcefulness.”
Rajan Warrier case
The Times of India, Jun 28 2015
Siddharth Varadarajan
Lest we forget Emergency, remember a father's lament
In the annals of Indian political lit erature, I do not know of any book more moving than Memories of a Father, the lament written by T V Eachara Warrier, a retired Hindi professor in Kerala whose son, Rajan, was arrested from college on March 1, 1976, and never seen again. That the slim volume should lie neglected today is a loss to the world of letters. That the story it tells throbs with urgency and relevance nearly four decades after it was written speaks to a more frightening deficit: the continuing ability of politicians and men in uniform to get away with abduction and murder.
Rajan `disappeared' during the Emergency , when the courts refused to entertain writs of habeas corpus as the Supreme Court decided even the right to life could be suspended if the state so decided. Warrier raced to get to the bottom of his son's disappearance. His friends witnessed the arrest but from there the trail ran cold. Police officers denied any knowledge of his whereabouts, as did K Karunakaran, home minister of Kerala at the time. They all lied.
The Emergency was lifted on March 21, 1977 and Warrier immediately moved the Kerala High Court. It emerged that Rajan had been held by the police at an illegal detention centre.There, he was brutally tortured and eventually killed. His body was never found. Years later, the driver entrusted with the task of getting rid of the evidence told Matrubhoomi that Rajan's battered, lifeless body was fed to pigs at the government-owned Meat Products of India factory in Koothattukulam.
Warrier died of a broken heart in 2006 without ever discovering this final, horrific detail of what the police had done to his son. It is impossible to read the closing passages of his book, translated beautifully by Neelan, without tears welling up in one's eyes: “I shall stop. The rain is still lashing out. I remember my son when this heavy rain drums my rooftop, as if someone is opening the locked gate and knocking at the front door . It is not right to write that a living soul has no communication with the soul of the dead.
Raja Bano's son, Zahoor Dalal, had been abducted by sol diers near their home in Anantnag on March 24, 2000, killed in a staged encounter and buried along with four other innocent Kashmiri men in a desolate place called Pathribal. “Why did they pick up an innocent man and murder him? she asked me. “If there is a government, if there is justice, the people who did this must be punished. this must be punished. We ran her story on the front page of the Times of India on August 21, 2000. The case against his killers was eventually handed over to the CBI, which indicted several army officers for murder. But Raja Bano never got the justice she deserved and which she so desperately wanted. The courts took more than a decade to decide where the trial should take place. The Supreme Court eventually told the Army to either try its men or let civilian courts do the job. The Army chose the former and quickly concluded last January that no case had been made out against them.
We have happily deluded ourselves into believing the Emergency was an aberrant episode in the life of the nation, ignoring the impunity that continues to mark the exercise of state power in India. Just like Rajan's murderers went on to glorious careers in the police, the killers of Dalal will no doubt prosper. Before our very eyes, the CBI is helping the policemen and politicians accused of killing Kauser-bi, her husband Sohrabuddin and Tulsiram Prajapati to get away by not appealing their astonishing discharge.
